On the morning of Dec. 16, 2010, journalists and Irish citizens awaited the announcement of an important decision from the European Court of Human Rights. Would women in Ireland whose lives are threatened by their pregnancies be given better access to abortions? “At exactly 11 o’clock, that ruling went up on our website,” recalls John Hunter, head of IT at ECHR. “Two minutes later, it was on the front page of The Irish Times. Ten minutes later, it was on the BBC [British Broadcasting Company] site.”
Ireland prohibits abortions unless a woman’s life is in danger. Three women who were denied abortions in Ireland and flew to England for the procedure brought a case against the Irish government to the ECHR. The court found that the rights of one of the women had been violated, and ordered Ireland to reform its system by clarifying legislation on how doctors can better determine what constitutes a “real and substantial risk” to a pregnant woman’s life.
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